NANO-MEDIA INFORMATION CARRIER BASED ON PIXELATED NANO-STRUCTURES COMBINED WITH AN INTENSITY CONTROL LAYER

• US 20150042702A1
• Filed: 08/08/2014
• Published: 02/12/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/11/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Authentx Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Nanomedia Solutions Inc.
• Inventors: JIANG, HAO, QAREHBAGHI, REZA, KAMINSKA, BOZENA, NAJIMINAINI, MOHAMADREZA, CARSON, JEFFREY J.L., REZAEI, MOHAMAD
• Granted Patent: US 9,460,665 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/694
• CPC Class Codes: B42D 25/328 Diffraction gratings; Holograms
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 1/005 made of photonic crystals or photonic band gap materials photonic band-gap structures or photonic lattices in integrated optics G02B6/1225; photonic band-gap structures or photonic lattices in optical fibres G02B6/02295
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 5/008 Surface plasmon devices diffractive gratings with a pitch less than or comparable to the wavelength G02B5/1809; surface plasmons in integrated optics G02B6/1226; optical analysis of materials by means of surface plasmons G01N21/553
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/3413 Details of control of colour illumination sources

Abstract

A display media including a pixel layer containing subpixels for different optical bands composed of nano-scale structures and an intensity control layer that can pattern the luminance of the subpixels. The display media includes a substrate layer, a sub-wavelength substrate supported by the substrate layer and including subpixels, each subpixel defined by at least one sub-wavelength structure having at least one specific optical property including a specific optical band, at least two of the subpixels having a different specific optical property, and an intensity control layer to individually control an amount of luminance of each individual subpixel in a pattern. Some of the subpixels may have colors that define a color space, while some other subpixels may have an invisible radiation spectrum band. For example, the display media can allow both overt information (color images) and covert information to be embedded together with high density.

Claims

1. A display media, comprising:

a substrate layer;

a sub-wavelength substrate supported by the substrate layer and including subpixels, each subpixel defined by at least one sub-wavelength structure having at least one specific optical property including a specific optical band, at least two of the subpixels having a different specific optical property; and

an intensity control layer to individually control an amount of luminance of each individual of said subpixels in a pattern.

2. The display media as claimed in claim 1, wherein the sub-wavelength substrate further comprises pixel sets, each pixel set being defined by a subset of the subpixels exclusive to the other pixel sets, wherein at least two of the subpixels in each pixel set have a different specific optical property.

3. The display media as claimed in claim 2, wherein the subpixels for one of the pixel sets have a same respective at least one specific optical property as the subpixels for another one of the pixel sets.

4. The display media as claimed in claim 2, wherein the subpixels for all of the pixel sets have a same respective at least one specific optical property.

5. The display media as claimed in claim 2, wherein each subset of subpixels for each pixel set includes subpixels in proximity to each other to provide an effective output which is perceivable as a combination of the individual subpixels;

said subpixels being arranged into 1-D pattern or 2-D pattern.

6. The display media as claimed in claim 2, wherein each subset of subpixels for each pixel set includes:

1) subpixels which are red, green and blue;

or

     2) subpixels which are cyan, magenta and yellow;

or

     3) subpixels which are colors that define a color space.

7. The display media as claimed in claim 5, wherein each subset of subpixels further includes at least one subpixel having an invisible optical band.

8. The display media as claimed in claim 2, wherein said pixel sets are arranged in at least one of an array, a grid, an aperiodic, and a periodic arrangement.

9. The display media as claimed in claim 2, wherein each subset of subpixels includes at least one subpixel having an invisible optical band.

10. The display media as claimed in claim 1, wherein the at least one specific optical property includes an angle dependence.

11. The display media as claimed in claim 1, wherein the pattern includes information for communication to a recipient or a reader device.

12. The display media as claimed in claim 1, wherein the pattern includes at least one pattern in a visible optical band, at least one pattern in an invisible optical band, or a combination thereof.

13. The display media as claimed in claim 1, wherein at least one of the subpixels has an invisible optical band.

14. The display media as claimed in claim 13, wherein the invisible optical band is from at least one of infrared spectrum and ultraviolet spectrum.

15. The display media as claimed in claim 1, wherein the controlled amount of luminance by the intensity control layer includes an attenuation of at least some of said subpixels.

16. The display media as claimed in claim 1, wherein the controlled amount of luminance by the intensity control layer includes a gain increase of at least some of said subpixels.

17. The display media as claimed in claim 1, wherein the at least one sub-wavelength structure further comprises:

a metal film having sub-wavelength apertures;

or a metal film structured with periodic topology;

or a metal film having sub-wavelength cavities;

or sub-wavelength metal particles;

or a metal film having sub-wavelength apertures and sub-wavelength metal particles;

or said particles are stacked on top of said apertures;

or a dielectric film structured with periodic topography;

or said dielectric film comprises at least two dielectric materials of different refractive index;

or a combination or a sub-combination thereof.

18. The display media as claimed in claim 1, wherein the specific optical band of at least some subpixels include visible color, and wherein the specific optical band of at least some other subpixels include invisible optical radiation.

19. The display media as claimed in claim 1, wherein the at least one sub-wavelength structure is configured to display the respective specific optical band due to:

transmission of incident light;

or reflection of incident light;

or diffraction of incident light;

or scattering of incident light;

or resonance of incident light;

or a combination or sub-combination thereof.

20. The display media as claimed in claim 1, wherein the pattern is solely customized by the intensity control layer and the sub-wavelength substrate is generic to the pattern.

21. The display media as claimed in claim 1, wherein each of said subpixels have size ranging from 200 nanometers to 500 micrometers or even larger.

22. The display media as claimed in claim 1, further comprising one or more fiducial marks on at least one of the layers or the sub-wavelength substrate for alignment.

23. The display media as claimed in claim 1, wherein the intensity control layer includes a control subregion specific to each subpixel, wherein each control subregion includes an applicable size of open aperture in an optically-opaque film to individually control the amount of luminance of each individual of said subpixels;

the said optically-opaque film can be a metal film or a film having materials to attenuate light.

24. The display media as claimed in claim 1, wherein the intensity control layer includes a control subregion specific to each subpixel, wherein each control subregion includes an applicable amount of particles to individually control the amount of luminance of each individual of said subpixels.

25. The display media as claimed in claim 1, wherein when the incident light and/or viewing angles are varied the display media displays shifting color and/or intensity shifting effects and functions as an optically variable graphic.

26. The display media as claimed in claim 1, wherein the intensity control layer includes a photo-sensitive layer which is configured to be optically modified to generate the pattern.

27. An optical document security device for authentication purposes, wherein at least one designed color image is produced onto the display media as claimed in claim 1, wherein said optical document security device displays an optically variable graphic.

28. A security identity device, wherein an image of a person is produced onto the display media as claimed in claim 1;

wherein said image of said person displays an optically variable graphic of said person; and

wherein said person'"'"'s identifying information or other data is displayable as covert information for enhanced security.

29. A publishing media produced onto the display media claimed in claim 1, for artistic, advertisement or safety purposes;

wherein said publishing media displays visible information; and

wherein said publishing media includes displayable covert information.

30. The display media as claimed in claim 1, wherein said intensity control layer is a 1-D pattern on a thread or a 2-D pattern on a film.

41. A tangible optical storage medium for information storage and information communication, wherein information is encoded as color patterns, black/white patterns, covert patterns, and/or binary data, produced onto the display media as claimed in claim 1.

42. The tangible optical storage medium as claimed in claim 41, wherein the information in said optical storage medium is at least partially readable by way of a visible optical band.

43. The tangible optical storage medium as claimed in claim 41, wherein the information in said optical storage medium is at least partly readable or recoverable using a reader device.

44. The tangible optical storage medium as claimed in claim 43, wherein the reader device is further configured to detect radiation in a non-visible optical band.

31. A display media, comprising a pixel layer with sub-wavelength structures having at least one specific optical property, at least two of the sub-wavelength structures having a different specific optical property;

and a photo-sensitive layer which is configured to be optically modified to pattern the luminance of each of the sub-wavelength structures.

32. A method for producing color images onto a display media including a pixel layer with sub-wavelength structures having at least one specific optical property, at least two of the sub-wavelength structures having a different specific optical property;

and a photo-sensitive layer which is configured to be optically modified to pattern the luminance of each of the sub-wavelength structures, wherein each subpixel defined by at least one sub-wavelength structure has at least one specific optical transmission band, at least two of the subpixels having different optical transmission bands, the method comprising;

determining desired overt information; and

calculating an exposure image; and

exposing the said exposure image onto the said display media; and

chemical processing of the photo-sensitive layer.

33. A method for producing color images onto a display media including a pixel layer with sub-wavelength structures having at least one specific optical property, at least two of the sub-wavelength structures having a different specific optical property;

and a photo-sensitive layer which is configured to be optically modified to pattern the luminance of each of the sub-wavelength structures, wherein each subpixel defined by at least one sub-wavelength structure having at least one specific optical transmission band, at least two of the subpixels having different optical transmission bands, the method comprising;

loading the said display media into a film camera; and

exposing an image onto said display media; and

chemical processing of the photo-sensitive layer.

34. A method for producing color images onto a sub-wavelength substrate supported by a substrate layer and including subpixels, each subpixel defined by at least one sub-wavelength structure having at least one specific optical property including a specific optical band, at least two of the subpixels having a different specific optical property, the method comprising:

determining desired overt and/or covert information; and

patterning each individual control subregion of an intensity control layer in accordance with the determined desired overt and/or covert information to control an amount of luminance of each individual of said subpixels.

35. The method as claimed in claim 34, further comprising aligning and fixing the intensity control layer with the sub-wavelength substrate.

36. The method as claimed in claim 34, further comprising fabricating the sub-wavelength structures using a master stamp.

37. The method as claimed in claim 34, wherein the patterning is solely customized by the intensity control layer and the sub-wavelength substrate is generic to the pattern.

38. The method as claimed in claim 34 to directly pattern the sub-wavelength substrate with the desired overt and/or covert information without the necessity of alignment.

39. The method as claimed in claim 34, further comprising directly imprinting the sub-wavelength substrate layer onto a surface of the intensity control layer.

40. The method as claimed in claim 34, further comprising mass-producing the sub-wavelength substrate, wherein the sub-wavelength substrate is generic to the pattern.

45. A display media, comprising:

a substrate layer;

a sub-wavelength substrate supported by the substrate layer and including pixels, each pixel being defined by a subset of subpixels which are defined by at least one sub-wavelength structure having at least one specific optical property including a specific optical band, at least two of the subpixels in each pixel have a different specific optical property; and

an intensity control layer to pattern an amount of luminance of the subpixels.

46. The display media as claimed in claim 45, wherein the subpixels for one of the pixels have a same respective at least one specific optical property as the subpixels for another one of the pixels.